Moral relativism

[Cypress]

Clearly it (burning babies alive) is subjective and relative!

The morality of burning babies alive is not subjective and something just left to opinion and social convention.

There can be no compromise on this.

Burning babies alive is absolutely and objectively wrong for all time and place. The Cannanites and Carthaginians were absolutely and objectively wrong for burning babies and ritually sacrificing children.

 

[Cypress]

Relative is not subjectivism. It is like Einstein's notion of frames of reference. Nothing to do with opinion.

Physical relativism means observers in different frames of motion do not agree on their perception of time and space. The only thing that's objective are the spacetime intervals, but spacetime intervals are not easily and naturally intuited by the human mind.

The morality of burning babies alive is not something that observers can just choose to disagree on. There can't be any concession on this, nor can there be any pscho-babble about how we just leave it all up to social convention.

 

[Hume]

Physical relativism means observers in different frames of motion do not agree on their perception of time and space. T

On the measure, yes.

 

[Hume]

Physical relativism means observers in different frames of motion do not agree on their perception of time and space. The only thing that's objective are the spacetime intervals, but spacetime intervals are not naturally intuited by the human mind.

The morality of burning babies alive is not something that observers can just choose to disagree on. There can't be any concession on this, nor can there be any pscho-babble about how we just leave it all up to social convention.

You are a God believer, yes? So always about existence of a transcendent God.

 

[Cypress]

One need only look at human history to see that no such thing ever existed.

The people who actually AGREE WITH YOU on the existence of eternal objective morality just as often murdered and lied as the people who didn't. Arguably sometimes even moreso. It's easy to get someone to kill another if you convince them that it is part of the plan of the author of the universe.

I did not write a word claiming humans always and consistently follow their inner moral conscience. The moral conscience tells us what we ought to do, but free will gives us the ability to choose to do otherwise.

 

[Hume]

I did not write a word claiming humans always and consistently follow their inner moral conscience. The moral conscience tells us what we ought to do, but free will gives us the ability to choose to do otherwise.

Is moral conscience biological, something we are born with?

 

[Melchizedek=Tecumseh]

Yet you are human, and have created your own morals, just like everyone else.

I have no morals,I'm a sinner saved by Grace,paid for by the Blood of the Cross!

 

[Melchizedek=Tecumseh]

I did not write a word claiming humans always and consistently follow their inner moral conscience. The moral conscience tells us what we ought to do, but free will gives us the ability to choose to do otherwise.

"The Spirit is willing but the Flesh is weak"!

 

[Cypress]

Is moral conscience biological, something we are born with?

Nobody really knows. Anyone who says they know is lying. Quarks and electrons do not have values, and that's what physically comprises our entire bodies. Beneficence, justice, veracity are immaterial abstract values that are not found in electrons, quarks, or the electro-chemical bonds of organic molecules. We don't really know why we perceive immaterial abstract values that aren't necessary for Darwinian evolution and survival.

 

[Hume]

Nobody really knows. Anyone who says they know is lying. Quarks and electrons do not have values, and that's what physically comprises our entire bodies. Beneficence, justice, veracity are immaterial abstract values that are not found in electrons, quarks, or the electro-chemical bonds of organic molecules.

If not biological, what is the moral conscience?

 

[murph63]

Burning babies alive, torturing children, liquidating the disabled in a program of eugenics are absolutely and objectively wrong for all time and place.

Take it up with the Israelites.

On this there can be no compromise nor any psycho-babble about how morals are just merely subjective and based on cultural convention.

Is it therefore morally wrong if a wild dog kills the babies?

Exactly. Cannanite society thought it was perfectly okay to ritually burn babies alive.

As did the Israelites who murdered entire villages and slaughtered in the name of their God.

Cannanite opinion/cultural norm is wrong. Burning babies alive is absolutely and objectively wrong in all time and place.

To bad the primary book that introduces us to the author of all morality characterizes him as being OK with that sort of thing.

 

[murph63]

Nobody really knows. Anyone who says they know is lying. Quarks and electrons do not have values,

Nor do they have thoughts but yet YOU HAVE THOUGHTS. Are those thoughts generated by physical matter? Or are you of the opinion that they are beamed into your head from God or whatever?

and that's what physically comprises our entire bodies. Beneficence, justice, veracity are immaterial abstract values that are not found in electrons, quarks, or the electro-chemical bonds of organic molecules. We don't really know why we perceive immaterial abstract values that aren't necessary for Darwinian evolution and survival.

Emergent properties. The bane of the religious. Water molecules aren't "wet" but wetness arises from the assemblage and interaction thereof.

 

[murph63]

If not biological, what is the moral conscience?

Seemingly according to people like Cypress it is from on-high, beamed into our heads using magic rays.

 

[Hume]

Seemingly according to people like Cypress it is from on-high, beamed into our heads using magic rays.

Descartes said we are born with the idea of God in our mind.

 

[Cypress]

Emergent properties!

That's just a vague fancy bullshit term which covers up the fact we do no really know how and why conciousness, abstract values, subjective mental experience comes from three pounds of gray matter made from inanimate quarks and electrons.

The proper scientific response is to admit ignorance, rather than bullshit your way through.

 

[Hume]

That's just a vague bullshit fancy term which covers up the fact we do no really know how and why conciousness, abstract values, subjective mental experience comes from three pounds of gray matter made from inanimate quarks and electrons.

The proper scientific response is to admit ignorance, rather than bullshit your way through.

Abstract values are not physical. Values are what is valued. Again, you seem to be concerned your God is denied if humans decide for themselves how to live.

 

[murph63]

That's just a vague fancy bullshit term

except I gave you a very real world example. I can understand (it was a chemistry example which probably went over your head).

I don't see why you always special plead. For some reason countless emergent properties are known to exist in reality but Cypress has decreed that the mental state CANNOT BE ONE.

which covers up the fact we do no really know how and why conciousness, abstract values, subjective mental experience comes from three pounds of gray matter made from inanimate quarks and electrons.

So when you dont' know something you assume it is from a supernatural source?

The proper scientific response is to admit ignorance, rather than bullshit your way through.

too bad you never do so.

 

[Cypress]

beamed into our heads using magic rays!

Derision and disdain are not consistent with practicing the Golden Rule, which you are always claiming humans are just naturally predisposed towards practicing by evolution.

I never wrote a word about magic beams. Everything seems to be internal. The brain is a biological substrate for the mind, for conciousness, for subjective experience, for transcendent values.

I find that when a poster gets angry and has to resort to derision and disdain, it means my comments are scoring direct hits.

 

[Hume]

Derision and disdain are not consistent with practicing the Golden Rule, which you are always claiming humans are just naturally predisposed towards practicing by evolution.

I never wrote a word about magic beams. Everything seems to be internal. The brain is a biological substrate for the mind, for conciousness, for subjective experience, for transcendent values.

I find that when a poster gets angry and has to resort to derision and disdain, it means my comments are scoring direct hits.

The question is, if morals are not biological, what are they?

 

[Cypress]

Abstract values are not physical. Values are what is valued. Again, you seem to be concerned your God is denied if humans decide for themselves how to live.

I haven't written a word about an Abrahamic god on this thread. You must have a deep latent resentment against a certain branch of human religion if you keep thinking about it and bringing it up over and over.